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TARANTINO: I’ve always loved that song and I was always disappointed at how (director) Paul Schrader used it in “Cat People,” because he didn’t use it — he just threw it in the closing credits. And I remember back then, when “Cat People” came out, going, “Man, if I had that song, I’d build a 20-minute scene around it. I wouldn’t throw it away in the closing credits.” So I did. (laughs)

It would be easy enough for me to hire somebody to write “The Ballad of Shoshanna” (the heroine of “Inglourious Basterds”) if I wanted to, but I don’t want my choices to hit the nail on the head. I want them to be glancing blows. The second-generation quality about it makes it more resonant. You’re watching that scene and you’re hearing the lyrics and you’re actually surprised at how appropriate they are to her story. In its own way, I think that makes it play even more like interior monologue. I (played) it on set when we (filmed) it. That’s always really cool to do — you can’t do it all the time, because you’re probably recording sound at least half the time — but what’s really fun when you do it is, not only do the actors respond to it, the whole crew responds to it. It’s like they’re watching the movie as we’re making it. When you actually play the soundtrack and you can sync something up, the crew gets a glimpse of what the movie is going to be like, and it just thrills them.